On June 3, a LAN event took place in Dallas, DreamHack Dallas: There, players competed in the Fortnite Solo tournament for a prize pool of $25,000, with the winner receiving around €7,400. However, the match escalated: A Fortnite professional felt cheated out of victory by a young player and resorted to violence.
What kind of tournament was it?
- The Dreamhack is a brand of ESL, specializing in on-site esports tournaments. People meet and play against each other on PCs, in LANs. This takes place in various locations around the world.
- The Dreamhack Dallas featured a $25,000 tournament in Fortnite “No Build” . The tournament was open to anyone who purchased a ticket starting at $150. One had to be on-site between 10 AM and 1 PM to sign up for “Open Matches”.
- The top 95 players from the “Open” made it to the finals. There were 6 games in total. The winner received $8,000 – the total prize pool for the top participants was $25,000.
In Fortnite, the next Season 3 in Chapter 3 is starting:
Pro falls in first place in the last game – As a boy “lands on him”
How did the situation escalate? There is no recording of the stream, but according to accounts from attendees and from him, it seems that player “Diego Playz” was leading in the finals and was the first to enter the last match.
Diego Playz is a North American professional player representing Team Moon Unit. He played in May with the extremely strong player, Bizzle, in duos. So he can really play and was able to dominate the “normal amateurs” at the LAN.
But in the last game, while he was in first place, he was apparently targeted for “griefing”: A player who was already far behind and played no role in the ranking “landed on him”: seeking confrontation with him directly upon jumping on the map.
“Landing on someone” is considered a violation of unwritten etiquette in Fortnite. It’s roughly like a lapped driver crashing directly into the leader during a Formula 1 race. According to Diego Playz, the boy was also supposedly supported by a “whole group of friends”.
After the match, Diego Playz reportedly went to the other player’s PC and punched him in the face.
There is only a recording of the seconds after the incident, when staff were already clearing the situation with the announcement, “Don’t fight here, there’s expensive stuff around.”
In the clip, you can see that the boy (in the black hoodie) apparently wants to retaliate against Diego Playz (olive green shirt) and runs towards him, but is held back by a friend. A staff member calls out while the two fighters remain separated – Diego Playz is escorted away at the end of the clip:
Ninja finds “Loser” has compromised the integrity of the competition, somehow deserved it
This is the perspective: The overly ambitious Twitch streamer Ninja is on Diego Playz’s side when a friend tells him about the incident.
When Ninja hears the story, he says: It sounds good to him. While it’s not okay to resort to violence, the boy somehow asked for it.
That’s a “damn loser.” He summarizes it with “You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes” – a loser shouldn’t compromise the integrity of the competition.
Not surprisingly, the other big Twitch streamer for Fortnite, Turner “Tfue” Tenney sees it the same way. He is also known for letting his temper run free.
Pro apologizes for his outburst
This is how the pro sees it: Diego Play himself now has a different perspective. He says it felt terrible to be stopped right before victory at the LAN after he put in so much effort.
But despite everything, he shouldn’t have reacted that way. He now wants to apologize to the boy and his family – as well as to Dreamhack (via twitlonger).
This is what DreamHack says: They stated briefly on Twitter: There was an incident. They took care of it. The safety of the participants is extremely important.
They are just there to have fun and play. Dreamhack calls for: Let’s have a great weekend (via twitter).
Constant stress about Fortnite as an eSport
This is what it’s about: Such incidents show that Fortnite is simply unsuitable as an eSport. The basic concept of Fortnite contradicts the idea of esports:
- 100 people play in “Everyone against everyone” format, from second one fighting is possible
- But actually, it’s better to avoid fair fights, gather resources, and conserve oneself: Either you engage in only “safe fights” or try to stay out as much as possible
- Because the game allows so much, and there are only “unwritten rules”, manipulation is easily possible
Because there are so many ways to play “wrongly”, which Fortnite allows, but somehow violate “unwritten competition rules”:
- The game allows you to directly “land on someone” and try to kill them, even if it ruins your own chances of winning.
- Similarly, it’s possible for pros to coordinate their routes and avoid each other for most of the match, thus increasing their chances of winning. Before the Fortnite World Cup, many future millionaires were with “a coach” who apparently coordinated the routes so that the chances of “cashing in” increased
- Players consciously avoid each other, do not fight against one another to avoid wasting resources
All of these are significant issues that a “proper eSport title” would not allow. In games like LoL or CS:GO, such “griefing” is not possible. You can’t choose whether you want to fight or wait until another player eliminates an opponent.
Update June 6, 1:19 PM: The matter now has a peculiar after-effect:
The thumbnail shows Diegoplayz at Dreamhack. It is from his Twitter account.
